Welcome!

XML Authors: Katharine Hadow, Greg Schulz, Ambal Balakrishnan, Jeff Scholes, Brad Abrams

Related Topics: XML, Open Source

XML: Article

Groups Tell ICANN That It Can't in Internet Domain Name Furor

Lawsuits Filed in Wake of Proposed ICANN Renewal of Control

At your next soiree, stay away from boring subjects such as who's divorcing whom in Hollywood or which bigfoot journalist is less reprehensible than which in Washington, DC. Instead, talk about Internet domain registration, which is emerging as a major topic within the geek community and the world at large.

Less than two weeks after the U.S. private-public agency ICANN received the go-ahead at the United Nations WSIS meeting in Tunis to retain control over domain registration, ICANN in turn proposed to allow Verisign to handle this task for it through the year 2012. And just as there were howls of protest that the U.S.-based ICANN would be prone to exerting undue influence over the Internet in our global village, there are new howls coming from global registrars over Verisign's continued monopoly on the key aspect of this critical function.

ICANN's draft proposal would give VeriSign exclusive control over the .com domain, and is being "vigorously opposed" by a group of notable domain registrars led by 1&1 Internet, who claim the plan harms competition within the Internet industry and could negatively impact end-users worldwide.

1&1, which was founded in Germany and has a major U.S. office in the Philadelphia area,  has announced that it is critical of both the content of the proposed agreement—which, among other things, would allow VeriSign to arbitrarily increase domain fees up to seven percent per year—and the manner in which it was drafted.

“The current draft of the agreement practically assigns .com to VeriSign forever,” said 1&1’s Domain Expert Eric Schaetzlein, who will present the registrar community’s concerns to ICANN at its meeting this week in Vancouver. “This contradicts ICANN’s core mission to promote competition in the Internet industry, which was established in its own by-laws and in the Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. Department of Commerce.”

Schaetzlein says registrars’ biggest concern with the proposal is the effect that the potential seven percent annual fee increases could have on global Internet users, and the fact that VeriSign can implement the price hikes without justification.

Meanwhile, two industry groups, The Coalition for ICANN Transparency (CFIT) and the World Association of Domain Name Developers (WADND), have filed antitrust lawsuits in U.S. federal court this week. 

More Stories By Roger Strukhoff

Roger Strukhoff earned a BA with honors from Knox College, a Certificate in Technical Communications from UC-Berkeley, and an MBA from CSU-East Bay. His work recently won a "Stevie" American Business Award as best publication in its category. His volunteer work in international affairs merited a Letter of Commendation from the Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard. He splits most of his time between Silicon Valley and Southeast Asia, but can also be found at www.twitter.com/strukhoff

Comments (3) View Comments

Share your thoughts on this story.

Add your comment
You must be signed in to add a comment. Sign-in | Register

In accordance with our Comment Policy, we encourage comments that are on topic, relevant and to-the-point. We will remove comments that include profanity, personal attacks, racial slurs, threats of violence, or other inappropriate material that violates our Terms and Conditions, and will block users who make repeated violations. We ask all readers to expect diversity of opinion and to treat one another with dignity and respect.


Most Recent Comments
SYS-CON Belgium News Desk 12/07/05 09:11:21 AM EST

Groups Tell ICANN That It Can't in Internet Domain Name Furor. A pair of lawsuits has been filed and domain registrars are lined up about the block in opposing a recently proposed extension of ICANN control over domain name extensions. The battle seems destined to last awhile.

SOA Web Services Journal News Desk 12/06/05 09:25:00 PM EST

A pair of lawsuits has been filed and domain registrars are lined up about the block in opposing a recently proposed extension of ICANN control over domain name extensions. The battle seems destined to last awhile.

EOS News Desk 12/01/05 05:59:46 PM EST

A pair of lawsuits has been filed and domain registrars are lined up about the block in opposing a recently proposed extension of ICANN control over domain name extensions. The battle seems destined to last awhile.